Lili Reinhart Doesn’t Want to Be Known As Anybody’s Girlfriend

Anonymous “hate” messages sound relatively par for the course when you count a combined 14 million Instagram and Twitter followers watching your every move. But for Lili Reinhart—one of the stars of The CW’s sexy-spooky phenomenon Riverdale—fielding nonstop nasty tweets and speculation about all aspects of her life (including her relationship, which, by the way, she is not afraid to acknowledge) feels like it really shouldn’t be a required part of doing her job. Some of the messages come from accounts created just to terrorize her, she tells me during a phone call in October; in the simplest of terms, she’s just really over it.

“The mean comments, lack of privacy, people wanting to know everything, being in stressful situations, having to be a public speaker even when you don’t feel like it, having to be ‘on’ 24-7,” it’s all a lot to deal with for a 22-year-old adjusting to the harsh glare of the spotlight, especially on an endless social media cycle. “If you hate me so much, don’t fucking talk about me,” Reinhart said. “I don’t have any sympathy for people who go online and attack people for no other reason than to get attention, or to start an army of hate against a celebrity. You need to find something better to do with your time.”

And it’s not just the anonymous Internet users, Reinhart recounted: A publication recently used her boyfriend (and Riverdale costar), Cole Sprouse, in a headline of a story about her. “There is still a problem here if you feel the need to say a man’s name, or someone who is more famous that is connected to me, in order to get someone to read an article about me . . . . I’m not a boring person,” Reinhart said. “I don’t need someone else’s name on a headline to make me sound more interesting.”

She’s certainly got a lot to talk about: Reinhart is currently in the middle of filming Riverdale’s 22-episode third season (“I know that I will never have another opportunity like this again to work with the people I’m closest with,” she said. “They make working in a job that is not very easy, manageable.”) and appeared in Galveston, Mélanie Laurent’s English-language directing debut, a crime-drama starring Elle Fanning and Ben Foster based on a book by True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto, which was released October 19.

Reinhart is also traveling to New York next month to speak at Glamour’s Women of the Year Summit, and plans to channel one of her role models, Lady Gaga, while she’s there. “I feel honored to be able to go to New York and speak at something like that,” she says; she’s planning to talk about rising above your insecurities, and tuning out the naysayers. “I feel inspired by all the recognition women in Hollywood are getting,” Reinhart said. “I think it is well earned, and about time.”